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I have to admit that i had to look up, what kind of a tournament this actually is

Apparantly it has some kind of tradition but somehow i didn't pay attention to the 2013 edition. Historically, do the teams/federations take this seriously and send their best possible teams?

Generally speaking and as a big friend of club volleyball, i don't think the world needs another NT tournament directly in front of the club season. There is World League, WCH qualification and continental championships and i think this should be enough.....

Sorry, but if you have not heard of the Grand Champions Cup, I dont think u are a really volleyball fan. OLOLOLO... unless u r really young.

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance"

There is very little coverage in german media on volleyball tournaments, even if german teams are participating. So you can imagine that the coverage or even the mention on tournaments with no german participation equals zero. i referred to 2013 as i was already enlisted here but do not remember any discussions. A quick forum search didn't deliver results for the men's tournament as well. So i was asking and luckily, i can always rely on knowledgable, humble and friendly guys like you .
Thank you for the links

Sorry, but if you have not heard of the Grand Champions Cup, I dont think u are a really volleyball fan. OLOLOLO... unless u r really young.

Started in 1993 ...and yes teams do send their best players. It is the first tournament after the GP and WL to start the new Olympic Cycle.

I was studying as an exchange student at Waseda University in Tokyo at the time and watched the Brazil-Italy, Cuba-USA and a little bit of the South Korea-Japan game in person during the Tokyo weekend matches.

There is very little coverage in german media on volleyball tournaments, even if german teams are participating. So you can imagine that the coverage or even the mention on tournaments with no german participation equals zero. i referred to 2013 as i was already enlisted here but do not remember any discussions. A quick forum search didn't deliver results for the men's tournament as well.

You are right, a forum search delivers nothing, I don't know why. But if you go to the archive section and enter the threads for both years 2013 and 2009, you will find the right threads Here they are:

There is very little coverage in german media on volleyball tournaments, even if german teams are participating. So you can imagine that the coverage or even the mention on tournaments with no german participation equals zero. i referred to 2013 as i was already enlisted here but do not remember any discussions. A quick forum search didn't deliver results for the men's tournament as well.

You are right, a forum search delivers nothing, I don't know why. But if you go to the archive section and enter the threads for both years 2013 and 2009, you will find the right threads Here they are:

2017 Men's World Grand Champions Cup

The 7th edition of the world's most useless international tournament will take place in Japan, as usual, in the period 12 - 17 September. The list of participants is almost the same as in 2013, even the wild card recipient is identical, this time the reigning European champions France replace Russia.

Italy with the same of the ECh:
Giannelli-Spirito
Lanza-Antonov-Randazzo-Botto
Buti-Mazzone-Ricci-Piano
Vettori-Sabbi
Colaci-Balaso

About the others, Ngapeth won't be there (he is/will soon be in Modena to asset his condition).

Plus, there are players waited in the Italian League that hasn't arrived yet (nor are mentioned to arrive soon, unlike other players like Kovacevic, for example), so I guess they will all be there: Bruno, Grebennikov, Christenson, both Shojis, Russell, Sander, Holt, Le Goff, Clevenot, Jaeschke, I think also Manavi...
Eder is in Trento so he won't play with Brazil for sure.

I also read that due to the commitment with the NTs, Matt Anderson (Zenit Kazan) and Ryley Barnes (Ural Ufa) will skip the first 5 matches of the Russia League (that starts today), while Le Roux (Dinamo Mosca) only the first 2.

Brazil is the favorite to win this. France is not playing like they did in the WL and without Negpeth, Italy is playing bad and without Zaytsev, and USA just lost 4x for Brazil. Iran is not playing well either and Japan does not even count. But I want to see someone upsetting Brazil.

Two players less!
I can understand the missing OH because the lack of Ngapeth was a recent surprise (even if they could have put Tillie as OH and call the second libero of the WL...)
But what about Le Roux? He isn't with Dinamo but neither with the NT?

Brazil is the favorite to win this. France is not playing like they did in the WL and without Negpeth, Italy is playing bad and without Zaytsev, and USA just lost 4x for Brazil. Iran is not playing well either and Japan does not even count. But I want to see someone upsetting Brazil.

I overall agree, at the moment I see Brazil and then USA as the favorite.
Still, I really really hope France and Italy will perform better than in the ECh, whatever the results will be.
After all the match Italy-Brazil (won by Brazil) in the WL was probably the best we played the whole summer
I think France and may be also Italy have in them the potential to beat the other teams (in the right circumstances), but at the moment I think they also have the 'potential' to lose vs Japan

Anyway, from a strictly technical point of view we have a lot of good looking players in this tournament
It's such a pity the timetable in Italy is terrible, I think I will be able to watch only one Italian match live